Shurfa Filmfestival
Introducing Shurfa Film Festival: a first edition of Lebanese cinema in Belgium
1–3 October 2026
Het Bos, Antwerp · Pianofabriek, Brussels · Kunsthal Gent, Ghent
A selection of Lebanese films & documentaries, in Arabic with English and French subtitles. Organised by Mirsat and run entirely by volunteers
PANEL Discussion
The panel will feature 3 speakers on stage addressing 3 questions specifically about: the value and impact of archival footage in shaping culture, the power of film in the face of erasure & when do journalism & content become art?
SHORTS
Seeds of Dignity by Ali Alsheikh Khedr
A portrait of Buzuruna Juzuruna, the farming collective in the Bekaa Valley that saves, grows and shares traditional seeds.
Warsha by Dania Bdeir
Mohammad, a Syrian worker in Beirut, volunteers to take over one of the city’s tallest and most dangerous cranes. Alone in the cab, high above everyone, he is free to become someone else. (Shortlisted for best international Short at the Academy Awards 2022)
Buffer Zone by Farrah Berrou
part-documentary and part-memoir, Farrah Berrou takes us to her ancestral border village of Kfarkila in southern Lebanon for the first time since October 8, 2023, the same day that Lebanon became a support-front to Gaza and Palestine in a post-October 7th world.
FEATURES
After the End of World by Nadim Mishlawi
After his father’s death, composer and filmmaker Nadim Mishlawi turns to Beirut, a city that keeps being torn down and rebuilt. Through archive footage, its buildings and an enveloping soundscape, he asks what places remember, and what goes with them when they disappear.
Run for Life by Bashar Khattar
Follows an ultra-runner across the mountains of the Lebanon Mountain Trail. Underneath the endurance and the altitude, it is a story about a father and his daughter.
Arabic with EN/FR subtitles.
Every ticket sold goes to grassroots collectives in Lebanon.
@shurfafilmfest
www.shurfa.be
